Founding Director, Baker Institute for Public Policy | Baker Institute Board of Advisors, Life Member
Last week, Baker Institute founding director Ambassador Edward Djerejian traveled to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ramallah, where he met with top officials involved in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Djerejian spoke with President Shimon Peres of Israel (pictured at left, with Ambassador Djerejian); PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi, Ph.D. (pictured below, with Ambassador Djerejian); and U.S. special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations Ambassador Martin Indyk.
The Baker Institute’s Sabbagh Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, Samih Al-Abid, Ph.D., and the Baker Institute’s Brochstein Fellow in Middle East Peace and Security in Honor of Yitzhak Rabin, Yair Hirschfeld, Ph.D., joined Ambassador Djerejian to discuss the obstacles and opportunities for a prospective peace deal prior to the nine-month deadline for negotiations set by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, which is due to expire next spring.
This latest visit builds on previous efforts by Djerejian, Hirschfeld, Al-Abid and the Baker Institute conflict resolution program to advocate for a strong U.S. role supporting direct negotiations between the parties. In February 2010, the team published the report, “Getting to the Territorial Endgame of an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Settlement,” which offers concrete recommendations to U.S. negotiators on the territorial component of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
Before the start of the current round of negotiations in March, Djerejian published a series of recommendations for the United States to advance a two-state solution, which argued that proactive U.S. engagement is the only policy option that has the potential of creating a realistic policy trajectory of peace and stability-building in the Middle East and re-establishing U.S. leadership in the region. The paper was described in a Jerusalem Post article as an “indicator … of the direction Kerry is going, both structurally and substantively.”
